Intranet ROI: How to Work Out Whether It Is Actually Worth It

An intranet can be worthwhile. It can also become an expensive home for documents nobody reads. The difference is whether it removes a measured business problem.

Start with a baseline #

Pick a handful of repeated tasks: finding the current policy, onboarding a new employee, answering a common internal question, locating a form, or preparing a management update. Measure how often each happens and roughly how much effort it consumes now.

Do not turn every saved minute into profit #

If a staff member saves ten minutes, the business has not automatically earned ten minutes of wages back. The saving becomes valuable when it avoids overtime or hiring, increases useful output, improves customer response, reduces mistakes or gives managers capacity for higher-value work.

Use a transparent formula #

Annual benefit = frequency × realistic time improvement × value of the recovered capacity. Then subtract annual software, support and content-maintenance costs. Compare the result with the one-off implementation cost.

Run a conservative case, a likely case and an optimistic case. If the project only works financially in the optimistic case, that is useful information before you build it.

Include the costs people forget #

• Cleaning and moving existing content.
• Permissions and sign-in.
• Training and launch communication.
• Someone owning policies and keeping information current.
• Ongoing hosting, support and improvements.

Measure after launch #

Repeat the baseline measures. Also watch adoption: if staff still ask the same person for the same document, the intranet has not solved the problem merely because the page exists.

When not to build one #

A small co-located team with simple information needs may be better served by a well-organised shared drive and a few clear processes. Build an intranet when the cost of fragmented information, access and repeated internal work is material enough to justify owning one.